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Kuppermann named chair of the Pediatric Emergency Research Networks

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) —

Nathan Kuppermann, professor and chair of emergency medicine at UC Davis, is wearing yet another hat these days. He’s been named chair of the executive committee of the Pediatric Emergency Research Networks (PERN), an international collaborative involving five pediatric emergency medicine networks worldwide, representing the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Australia, New Zealand and parts of South America. The PERN networks include pediatric emergency departments that care for millions of children annually, and have access to clinical care data for pediatric emergency visits that are collected from over 100 hospitals in four of the six World Health Organization regions.

Nathan Kuppermann

Kuppermann was instrumental in helping found one PERN’s partner networks, the U.S.-based Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN). It is the only federally funded pediatric emergency care research network in the nation, with a goal of conducting high priority, multi-institutional research into the prevention and management of acute illnesses and injuries in children and youth of all ages. After serving as chair of PECARN for eight years, Kuppermann remains one of its principal investigators and has published a number of important clinical studies in prestigious medical journals from his work in PECARN in recent years.

As the new chair of the PERN executive committee, Kuppermann says he plans to bring more South American pediatric emergency research into the network, and help to mentor younger, less experienced networks around the globe. He spent a sabbatical in Argentina three years ago and helped encourage that nation’s emergency providers to better organize their data so that local expertise and experience could be included in international efforts to conduct large-scale studies with high-impact results. Kuppermann’s efforts resulted in the creation of an Argentine-Uruguayan pediatric emergency medicine research network called “RIDEPLA,” which participates in PERN.

To bring pediatric emergency medicine research to the next level, Kuppermann has been a dedicated advocate for developing the resources and infrastructure necessary for more robust multi-center studies, research collaborations and informational exchanges.

Kuppermann’s transition to chair takes place at an executive meeting in Vancouver early next month.